Courage and Pride [Chanterelle, Rio, Alicia]

[Leah Wright]

Leah stared at the messages popping up on her screen; each of her fellow chatters signing out. After hesitating for a second, she hit the blue (logout) button, and closed her laptop, sitting cross-legged on the bed. Chanterelle was the room next door, unless she was coming from one of the other two computer labs. One room was right on the other side of school; there were some computers in the downstairs common room that she could have been using, though. Anxiously, Leah began to play with her hair, trying to ward off a panic attack. Why was she such an idiot? If she'd just followed Rio's advice, and ignored Chanterelle... No, she had tried to impress him instead. 'Nice one. Really, really, awesome.'

What was Chanterelle going to do? Leah began to breathe faster, panicking. The blonde...freak must be coming from the common room or the far computer lab, unless she'd decided not to come. That was probably the best option. Just as she was starting to reassure herself that the terrifying, strong-looking, angry girl wasn't on her way, the door opened and Leah twitched, her entire body turning to look at the intruder.

What was she supposed to do? She'd never really been in a fight before. Once with Louise, but that didn't count, because the girls were the same size. Chanterelle was slightly taller than her, and Leah wasn't fueled by unrequited love mixed with anger. Oh, and she'd fought with Mark, if fighting consisted of screaming and punching out then fainting. It probably didn't... "Um," she muttered, trying to think of something witty to say. "...What's up?" Maybe it wasn't the most inventive, but it might stop Chanterelle in her tracks, make her reconsider...no. The blow to the side of her head literally knocked her off the bed, catching herself as she landed on the floor with a thump.

---

Chanterelle walked quickly from the common room, her arms swinging casually at her sides. She looked as though she was just heading upstairs to her dorm, maybe going to visit a friend; her anger was carefully concealed. Maybe it was mean to pick on some random chick, just because said girl had a complete git for a boyfriend, but Leah had asked for it, after all. Literally, asked for it; what were her exact words? Try it. It felt a little wrong to just attack Leah -who she'd seen in classes, a cute girl, dark hair, very quiet- but she couldn't just ignore that, not after having promised Rio that she was going to do it.

With a sigh, she started down the corridor to the room beside hers, planning her attack. Get Leah on the floor, break a rib or something, then smirk at Rio and get sent to isolation. It wasn't sounding like a great plan, but she was never one for backing down. Deciding to make it as painless as she could -it wasn't really Leah's fault, after all- Ely entered the room, trying her best not to laugh as she saw the terrified expression on the girls face. Nobody else was in the room; good. Rio was probably going to come and protect his sad little girlfriend, but she had a minute to make as much of an...impression as possible.

Smiling at Leah, she leisurely crossed the room, amused that the girl didn't even try to defend herself, and almost casually punched her. Raising an eyebrow as Leah fell -it hadn't been that hard- she swiftly moved around the bed and knelt beside her 'victim', feeling a little guilty that she was attacking in such cold blood. Still... Grabbing a hand, she bent the thumb back, hearing a crack and a shriek of pain. That would do for breaking bones, then.

[Riordan Shonski]

Rio moved quickly through the school, literally sprinting when he reached deserted corridors, slowing down instantly whenever he turned a corner, just in case there were people there. The cameras would see it, but security were so incompetent it would take them days to connect this to the fight he was fairly sure was about to happen. As he ran, he wondered how he was going to explain this one away. It was probably too late to stop Chanterelle getting to Leah and stop the whole fight from happening, which meant he'd have to come up with something to explain everything to the security and, most likely, his shrink. He could just try telling the truth... he had said something that upset Chanterelle, he didn't mean it because he was angry (that part wasn't strictly true) and Chanterelle had decided to take it out on Leah. There, that sounded pretty good... it made Chanterelle sound bad, made him sound good (or as good as he could sound, having told Chanterelle that she deserved to have her babies taken away from her) and Leah would be happy. Ish.

He reached her room in time to see Chanterelle smack her, sending her flying to the floor. Interesting. Apparently, she'd taken far longer than he'd expected to get up here. He really didn't need to have run- yes, he did. If he hadn't, he would have seemed... anyway, he'd run, and now he needed to do something. He didn't bother speaking, just stepped forwards and caught Chanterelle by the arm, yanking her back away from Leah and grabbing her other arm as he did now. There, her arms were restrained, he just needed to watch her legs... Unfortunately, he knew from experience, people with IED weren't that easy to restrain, and he prepared himself for much struggling and probably a lot of pain. Seriously, where were security when you needed them? When you were busy getting on with it, they were all over you, tying you up and throwing you in isolation, but now, when a psychopath was attacking your girlfriend? Oh, no, they're all on their coffee break.

He was stronger and taller than Chanterelle, which was useful, but she was very, very angry...

---

Alicia was making her way to the dorm. It probably wasn't a good idea, especially after that girl with the weird name - what was it? Chanterelle? - had threatened to go there and hurt Leah, but she was tired and wanted to put her bags down. She headed up the stairs; the receptionist had shown her the way earlier, and she had a pretty good memory, so she managed not to get lost. It would be really embarrassing if she'd wandered into the wrong dorm. Right, here she was, room 104. And there was a scream and a crash from inside... Alicia steeled herself and pushed the door open, her hand trembling. The scene inside terrified her.

A girl was lying on the floor, curled up around her finger. Even from this distance, Alicia could see that her thumb was broken. She assumed this was Leah, then, since the angry blonde must be Chanterelle and the guy holding onto her would be Rio. She edged in, raising her saxophone case as protection. They didn't seem to have noticed her, which was good... she sidled around the room to where Leah was sitting and crouched down beside her, unsure what to do. She didn't want to touch her, she hated touching strangers, but her thumb looked awful... "Are you OK?" she whispered, then blushed. "I mean... you're not, but... do you want... um... what do you want me to do?" she sounded like a bit of an idiot, but that was OK. Leah seemed nice, and so did Rio; she wasn't in any classes with Chanterelle, for which she was very thankful. She was scary. Alicia sat down beside Leah, unsure what to do. The two fighting were on the other side of the room, so she decided to stay with Leah. If they came over here she'd just scream until security came, she decided.

[Chanterelle Stone]

Leah relaxed when she saw Rio come in. Her thumb was really, really hurting, and she was terrified and trying her best not to cry (and scream, and have panic attacks and generally embarrass herself), but Rio would make everything better. There was sudden confusion, a horrible shrieking coming (presumably) from Chanterelle, and some thumping that didn't sound very good. Closing her eyes, Leah moved away from her position on the floor to a less vulnerable one near the bed. Her thumb was hurting a lot, and she began to worry about playing piano. Surely, it was going to be quite hard to do, if she couldn't move one of her right fingers? Yes, it was... That wasn't good.

As tears came to her eyes, there was a sudden voice by her side that made her jump, hands tensing reflexively. Groaning from the sudden pain, she opened her eyes carefully, staring at the blonde girl. Who the hell...oh. The saxophone case gave her a clue. "Alicia, right?" Or a random girl that had just decided to come into her room and lend a hand. Lend a thumb! Leah couldn't help but giggle, endorphins apparently doing their job. "I'm okay. I think I'm okay. I mean, I'm not. But I'm not bad..."

Another thump from the other side of the room made her heart race. Not good. She couldn't help but think of Mark, although the thumping in that case had been him hitting her, not him hitting a scary blonde girl. No, Rio wasn't hitting Chanterelle, was he? He wouldn't do that. He was nice... "Is Rio okay?" she asked anxiously, more worried about him then herself. "I'll help..." Putting her weight on one hand, Leah stood awkwardly, her head throbbing. With shaky legs, she took a small step towards the restrained girl, trying to work out what to do. Her head was spinning from where it had hit the floor, and she just wanted to lie down... With an odd feeling of sickness, she fainted, landing half on the bed before sliding onto the floor.

---

Chanterelle thought she'd been grabbed by security for a moment and twisted around, trying to get a glimpse of her captors face. When she saw Rio, she jerked her arms away, gasping when she felt a stab of pain in her shoulders. That was the point of an arm lock, wasn't it? It hurt when you tried to move. Still... Despite the pain she continued struggling, hoping that her shoulder wasn't about to be dislocated, and threw her feet backwards in an attempt to get his legs and feet. There wasn't much way she could miss, which made Ely smile. He'd be pretty bruised if things went her way, then.

"This a turn-on for you, then? Is restraining girls the only way you can get any touch, with your frigid girlfriend?" The words probably weren't loud enough for Leah, on the other side of the room, to hear. "Just get your fucking hands off me, right now." Her voice was quiet and deadly, the tone that her parents and friends would have recognized as being dangerous. "Or are you too scared to face me when I can move my arms?" She'd stopped fighting against Rio's hold on her arms now, the pain not worth the pointless struggle. Chanterelle continued kicking and at him though, the thought that Rio -that complete bastard- was holding her, pressing her close to him. It was just wrong.

She watched as a girl entered the room, some blonde kid, running over to Leah. "Ah, sweet. That her girlfriend, then? Guess she must have turned gay after just one kiss from you, then." The mention, earlier, that she had deserved to have her children taken away from her, made her want to hurt him in any way she could. Leah fainted and she laughed cruelly, stamping on Rio's foot as hard as she could. "What you gonna do now, then? Gonna leave me to go and tend to your sickly girlfriend, or are you just gonna stop me getting near to her? Aww, poor Leah. Think I could slit her throat while she's out?"